Novus Convert
Convert files
Vector & CAD format

AI converter

The .ai extension is Adobe Illustrator's native document format, holding editable vector artwork with layers, live effects, and text. Modern versions are effectively two files in one: a PDF rendition that almost anything can preview, plus a private Illustrator data stream that only Adobe's editor fully understands.

Private for supported formats — processed in your browser

Convert supported files

Runs on your device

Drop AI files here

Batch files can each use a different output. Nothing uploads for local conversions.

Working inputs include camera RAW, browser-local audio/video, PDF, CBZ/CBR comics, office documents, ebooks, markup, 3D models, structured text, images, and archives.

Where AI comes from

Illustrator and its format both shipped in 1987, originally storing artwork as a dialect of PostScript. With Illustrator 9 in 2000, Adobe rebuilt the format on PDF, embedding the proprietary editing data alongside a standards-compliant page so other software could at least display the file.

How AI works

  • Files saved with PDF compatibility contain a fully valid PDF rendition of the artwork.
  • The complete editable state — layers, symbols, live effects, appearance stacks — is serialized in a private PGF stream that non-Adobe tools ignore.
  • Legacy pre-2000 .ai files are EPS-like PostScript and need entirely different parsing.
  • Cubic Bezier paths are the native drawing primitive, matching PostScript and PDF.

When to use AI

  • Master files for professional logo and illustration work
  • Print design handoff between Adobe applications
  • Archiving artwork that must remain re-editable years later

Strengths and limitations

Strengths

  • The richest vector editing model in mainstream use
  • The embedded PDF layer makes basic viewing widely possible
  • De facto exchange standard inside design studios

Limitations

  • Full editing requires an Illustrator subscription
  • Files saved without PDF compatibility are opaque to everything else
  • Effects and live text can degrade or rasterize when opened in other editors

Compatibility

Illustrator on macOS and Windows is the only complete implementation, but the embedded PDF layer lets Acrobat, macOS Preview, and most PDF viewers display typical .ai files. Inkscape and Affinity Designer import through that same PDF rendition, losing Illustrator-specific editability along the way. Novus Convert takes exactly that route: it reads the PDF rendition locally with the same engine it uses for .pdf, exports the artwork as a standards PDF with the private Illustrator stream left behind, or renders the artboards to PNG or JPEG. A file saved without PDF compatibility — or a pre-2000 PostScript .ai — is refused with an explanation rather than mis-parsed.

XMP metadata — creator, title, and document history — rides along in the PDF layer, exactly as it does in Adobe's other formats. PDF export rebuilds each artboard from its own content stream, so document-level private data is dropped and the producer is rewritten.

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